Any religious people here? Could you help an atheist struggling to find his meaning or purpose?

[ggetout33]

I am an atheist (well, more nihilist if we're being honest) but I've come under a crisis of faith in recent times. Or more accurately a lack of meaning and purpose in my life.

I do feel, "freedom" (for lack of a better term) not being bound by dogmatic religious principles as an atheist. But at the same time I feel very isolated and aimless. I don't really have any big IRL community I can attend on a weekly basis, nor anything that gives my life real purpose. Just consoom product or consoom porn until next product comes along. Nothing has meaning, value, or integrity anymore and I feel it every day.

I don't believe in God since I've never seen him/her nor any evidence for them that couldn't easily be explained in a scientific manner. If I were to find out God exists, I would probably hold strong feelings of resentment over the way I was made by them, among other things. Hell, I do anyways.

A big reason why I'm an atheist (and why I've stayed one) is because of American Christianity and it's rippling effects on the country. They come off as radical, right-wing, violent nutjobs who advocate for the deaths of anyone not like them, particularly the LGBT. They seem like one bad day away from screaming the N word like it's a classic CoD lobby or going on a mass killing. They're given the Middle East a run for their money. Worst PR I have ever seen.

Part of me thinks if I was born and grew up in a country with a way more chillaxed religion that wasn't anywhere near as psycho-bloodthirsty, I wouldn't be an atheist. Either that, or I'd be more agnostic and open to the idea.

If religion was all about helping people, and being a net positive for others, along with striving for progress and the betterment of an idealistic human race then sign me the fuck up. But no, most religious people I see just use it as an excuse to be bigoted dicks. It's disappointing and only adds to the feeling of aimless nihilism.

I don't think trying to gaslight myself into believing in a God would do me any favors. And I wouldn't want it to change me as a person, unless that change was a purely positive one. But I especially don't want it making me one of those nutjobs. I just want the purpose and meaning that it gives some people. Could that be possible?

For starters, I do meditate but I've never read a bible or anything like that. I'm not sure if just meditating would count as spiritual but I have been open to exploring.

 

[Doombox]

I am not a religious person, but two things that come to mind when reading your post are the possibility of a Universalist church, which leans more towards Humanism than God (as I understand it from things I've read in passing) and Buddhism. Maybe you have a Buddhist group in your area. I was involved in a Buddhist group for a while and they were all about helping people, just like you say.

 

[ggetout33]

I am not a religious person, but two things that come to mind when reading your post are the possibility of a Universalist church, which leans more towards Humanism than God (as I understand it from things I've read in passing) and Buddhism. Maybe you have a Buddhist group in your area. I was involved in a Buddhist group for a while and they were all about helping people, just like you say.

I was Buddhist when I was younger. In fact I was a member of the SGI but I've read some not so nice things about them so I quit. Worshipping Ikeda put me off, not to mention the chanting while I preferred quiet meditation. The one I was in had a lot of older people and I'd be looking for people around my own age.

A Universalist Church I could maybe get with, but I hardly know anything about it.

I hate to say but maybe getting with people my own age seems like I'm asking too much. A lot of Gen Zs are atheist like me.

 

[Doombox]

I'm an atheist, and I agree (as many atheists do) that one problem with atheism is that we don't have communities like churches do. I think maybe Universalist churches have younger populations. I wish there were better answers.

 

[Pluto]

I think you speak for a lot of people, but it's rare to see someone so open-minded. I'm not from the US but I am very familiar with the type of aggressive, tribalist religious zealots who sometimes give Christianity a bad name in various places.

The weird thing is that they are often well-meaning and decent people as individuals, but the collective tends to become dominated by narcissists. Narcissists always use a combination of seduction and brutality to chase power at any cost, then push their own agenda at the expense of everyone else. Same as politics or corporations. Then people are angered by the injustice and hypocrisy, so they try and rebel by concluding that religion is bad and nihilism is the solution.

The first thing to say is that religion and spirituality are not the same thing. For people like yourself who genuinely want truth, there are many possible pathways. The tricky part is that the end game is something beyond the human mind and its needs. Beyond science and even beyond religion. If the goal were simply companionship, community and a structured worldview, any religion would work fine. But authentic truth-seeking starts to go beyond this.

Science - asking questions, experimenting and discarding bad ideas - is a great approach, though can have limitations because it is traditionally constricted to an exclusively material outlook, and thus tends to be dominated by dogmatic atheists pushing their agenda. The best example is near-death experiences. It is extremely common for people who are technically dead to have out-of-body experiences in which they overhear conversations in other rooms and later recall them accurately, which is verified by (stunned) medical professionals and others. They often undergo miraculous recoveries unexplainable to medicine. The atheist response is to deny that this happens, brand it a hallucination and block further discussion about what the implications might be for consciousness. Only someone truly willing to discard bad ideas will progress further.

Christianity can be a good pathway up to a point, but the biggest issue is that people ironically tend to overlook the teachings of Jesus. The various injustices against minorities are a good example. We also have to factor in thousands of years worth of corruption in the Church. A good example is hell, which is a concept that, through 'modification' of the narrative, evolved into an eternal torture. The goal was scaring and manipulating people. There is no hell except ignorance. The best Christian teacher I can name is Bernadette Roberts, who achieved an advanced spiritual state ("enlightenment") while using Christian framework and terminology.

But having said all of that, the best pathway that I can recommend for you would be Buddhism. There are communities, there is a sense of purpose and there is no looney God-stuff since the highest truth is described as a void. If you really don't want to mess around, Zen is the hardcore sect for authentic truth-seekers; the goal is nothing less than the state of enlightenment achieved by the Buddha himself. That's a whole topic in itself but in short, it is about uncovering our timeless essence rather than being stuck suffering through body/mind-identification as most people are.

 

[ggetout33]

I think you speak for a lot of people, but it's rare to see someone so open-minded. I'm not from the US but I am very familiar with the type of aggressive, tribalist religious zealots who sometimes give Christianity a bad name in various places.

Christianity does have a bad rep here in America, especially around younger people and the LGBT. Part of it is deserved for failing to root out and disassociate the bad apples. But I can't say every Christian I met was evil.

I have looked at NDE's but never really experienced any myself. I've never been near death either so it all seems kinda hokey pokey. How would I know these tales weren't fabricated if I hadn't been there to see the NDE myself? It hurts more if it's partially money driven (ie: writing a book where the "big bad atheist" sees God). I guess only time will tell?

Science - asking questions, experimenting and discarding bad ideas - is a great approach, though can have limitations because it is traditionally constricted to an exclusively material outlook, and thus tends to be dominated by dogmatic atheists pushing their agenda.

Yup, basically describes my whole problem. I went atheist because I wanted to be free from religious dogma and find truth. But I didn't stop to think I could've been throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I just assumed religion still survives today because of childhood indoctrination and lack of education.

Christianity can be a good pathway up to a point, but the biggest issue is that people ironically tend to overlook the teachings of Jesus.

I actually have researched what Jesus taught and my respect for him grew a lot. He was a middle eastern leftist hippie who championed the poor and went against the rich Roman fascists who killed him. And he sacrificed himself to save humanity from damnation, allegedly. But it makes me all the more disappointed when the Christians of today worship the exact opposite of what he preached. He's honestly one of the few who would've probably converted me if I had the chance to meet him. I especially liked his depiction in Paradise Regained by John Milton.

There is no hell except ignorance.

Indeed.

There aren't any other Buddhist communities I know of, as I live in a very Christian area. Perhaps if I try there first, I could learn just enough to find some common ground with the sane Christians and explore a more spiritual life from there...

Personally, I think if a God were to exist it would probably be an omni-theistic God. I don't think it would be specifically a Christian or Muslim God.

 

[Pluto]

Yes, doing some research into local Christian communities sounds like a good start. There is a lot of variation, from ultra-conservative to openly welcoming towards minorities. There may also be meetup.com groups of interest as an alternative to formal congregations.

I agree with your comments about Jesus' teachings. They are still radically ahead of their time even today. The extreme of the hypocrisy of the political right is part comical, part depressing. They've almost inverted his teachings to form a war-mongering cult aspiring to endless tax cuts for the rich.

The Abrahamic religions all reference the same God. The word 'Allah' is just the Arabic translation of the word 'God', not a separate deity.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I'm not massively religious but I get the sense that you are seeking a feeling of belonging and making a difference to other people's lives. I don't think you necessarily need to join a spiritual group for that. I imagine any form of volunteer work would make you feel like you were helping others. Plus, a sense of community can be felt simply by joining a club- a walking club, an evening class- anywhere where people regularly meet up and spend time together. I hope you find what you're looking for.

 

[macrocosm]

A lot of people try to find communities to belong to or find purpose through religious communities. If you think it's something you feel like you want to explore there are numerous mainstream religions and thousands of communities and sub cultures to explore.

Most people want to "belong" to a community, and since most religions/cults actively try to recruit more followers it's easy to fall into one.
Also if you want to do good in the world (it's noble if you really do,) you don't need a supernatural entity to tell you, or a religion to show you how.

 

[MeltingBrain]

I am an atheist (well, more nihilist if we're being honest) but I've come under a crisis of faith in recent times. Or more accurately a lack of meaning and purpose in my life.

I do feel, "freedom" (for lack of a better term) not being bound by dogmatic religious principles as an atheist. But at the same time I feel very isolated and aimless. I don't really have any big IRL community I can attend on a weekly basis, nor anything that gives my life real purpose. Just consoom product or consoom porn until next product comes along. Nothing has meaning, value, or integrity anymore and I feel it every day.

I don't believe in God since I've never seen him/her nor any evidence for them that couldn't easily be explained in a scientific manner. If I were to find out God exists, I would probably hold strong feelings of resentment over the way I was made by them, among other things. Hell, I do anyways.

A big reason why I'm an atheist (and why I've stayed one) is because of American Christianity and it's rippling effects on the country. They come off as radical, right-wing, violent nutjobs who advocate for the deaths of anyone not like them, particularly the LGBT. They seem like one bad day away from screaming the N word like it's a classic CoD lobby or going on a mass killing. They're given the Middle East a run for their money. Worst PR I have ever seen.

Part of me thinks if I was born and grew up in a country with a way more chillaxed religion that wasn't anywhere near as psycho-bloodthirsty, I wouldn't be an atheist. Either that, or I'd be more agnostic and open to the idea.

If religion was all about helping people, and being a net positive for others, along with striving for progress and the betterment of an idealistic human race then sign me the fuck up. But no, most religious people I see just use it as an excuse to be bigoted dicks. It's disappointing and only adds to the feeling of aimless nihilism.

I don't think trying to gaslight myself into believing in a God would do me any favors. And I wouldn't want it to change me as a person, unless that change was a purely positive one. But I especially don't want it making me one of those nutjobs. I just want the purpose and meaning that it gives some people. Could that be possible?

For starters, I do meditate but I've never read a bible or anything like that. I'm not sure if just meditating would count as spiritual but I have been open to exploring.

I was an atheist as well but now I am an agnostic. We don't even know how much we don't know. Unless science can conclusively answer the question of the beginnings of an "everything" and how it's going to pan out in the future there remains a possibility of a conscious hand at play. What we call big bang is actually the theory for beginnings of our universe . We don't know what lies beyond our universe or if something lies beyond it at all . There are different scientific theories from multiverses to nothingness but no definite answers.